There is widespread condemnation of the freezing of the bank account of NewsClick and support for its employees whose salaries are due.
Two of the website’s executives are in jail facing five parallel investigations on multiple charges including terrorism for allegedly accepting funds illegally from Shanghai-based US investor Neville Roy Singham. The website said it has been unable to make transactions from its bank account since Monday.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Press Club of India, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists, Press Association, Kerala Union of Working Journalists, and the Working News Cameramen’s Association demanded a stop to the harassment by authorities.
They said: “This move by the IT department without any warning whatsoever has in one stroke deprived close to a hundred media persons and their families of a steady source of income…. This action by the IT department also flouts basic norms of natural justice and labour laws.”
The press bodies slammed the seizure of electronic devices of employees.
They said: “Many, who are single earners, had to buy new equipment in order to continue working as there was no assurance of their seized equipment being returned in a definite time frame and that too in an untampered state. In addition, the 'summoning' and ‘questioning’ for days altogether of NewsClick staff and reporters on the pretext of investigation has been another mode of sustained harassment by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police.”
